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Mozilla makes rough notes on Firefox 3.6

For those about to Namoroka

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Mozilla is instructing developers to go back to school in readiness for the changes that will come in Firefox 3.6, and helpfully it’s published a new guide detailing the latest tweaks.

Many have already agonised over Mozilla’s plans to shake-up Firefox, following the release of mockups showing new iterations (3.7 and 4.0) of the browser over the past week.

Meanwhile, we at Vulture Towers have been patiently sitting on our hands waiting to see what Firefox 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 and later versions will look like.

Alas, we’re still waiting for that memo. In the meantime 3.6’s guide offers developers an insight into the Mozilla hive mind.

It's added support for hiding the menu bar automatically, in a move that clearly pre-empts the look and feel of versions 3.7 and 4.0. These both show starker designs that some have grumbled make the browser appear increasingly like a Google Chrome imitator.

Web app developers will be able to use a feature for adding notification sounds to alert users about a new email or instant message, say.

Firefox 3.6, which is code-named Namoroka and based on Gecko 1.9.2., isn’t due out until the first half of next year. So this document should be considered a work-in-progress rather than a definitive guide to what the new browser will or won’t feature. ®